Cargo readiness has been one of the biggest challenges in the breakbulk sector over the past few months, affecting both schedules and volumes.According to Ulrich Ulrichs, CEO of BBC Chartering, arguably the biggest breakbulk vessel operator in the world, the company has faced some serious exposure to the global Covid-19 pandemic, calling for some quick thinking and fast action right at the start of 2020.
Ulrichs, who took over as CEO late last year, said in January cargo readiness was already an issue as the pandemic hit China.“We learnt some very valuable lessons very quickly in our efforts to minimise our exposure,” he said during a recent webinar on the impact of Covid-19 on the breakbulk sector.The liner had to develop the ability to deal quickly and cost-effectively with the two biggest challenges – cargo readiness and delays.Ulrichs said while this had had an impact on volumes, it had also required the company to be more flexible than ever before.
“Cargo readiness was an issue and so sourcing changed. For example, the cargo was supposed to be picked up in China, but suddenly this would change to South America because it was now being sourced elsewhere,” he said. “There were delays everywhere – be it China, Europe, India, the Americas or Africa.”
He said different levels of operation at ports in different countries only added to delays. Another major challenge that had affected the movement of cargo had been decision making, said Ulrichs. Often delivered breakbulk cargo requires the original equipment manufacturer to be on the ground to assist with set up, but with travel bans in place around the world this led to uncertainty around whether the cargo should be moved in the meantime or not.“There was also uncertainty about what happened to cargo at end destinations once it was ready for loading.
Would the port be closed, would it be open, would vessels be able to berth, would the cargo be allowed to move to the final destination or would it be stored? All of this uncertainty resulted in decisions just not being taken.”From a vessel point of view crew changes were significantly affected as many ports around the world no longer allowed for this.
Ulrichs said it had not been an easy few months and the entire breakbulk supply chain would have to learn to operate under a new normal.“I do think that we now have improved communication within our organisation and with our customers. This pandemic forced us to have very open, transparent and frequent discussions with our clients to tackle the issues,” he said. “No one saw this pandemic coming and we were all in the same boat. This allowed an honesty in conversations that in turn led to innovative and creative ways to deal with the challenges.”